Story 26DX/N017 Story from 26DX/N017 activity. After hearing Twan 056 having fun activating a few Dutch Inland Water Islands, I decided to take advantage of the propagation and go out with portable equipment. On the morning of 12th November 2011, we pulled into the National Water Park Centre at 08:30utc, we drove over the bridge onto N005 and parked the car parallel to the neighbouring island of Holme ( N017 ). There's a small Office where the Island / Lock keeper usually resides, he wasn't there so we decided to take advantage of this, sms's were quickly exchanged with John 101 and within a couple of minutes 26DX/N017 activity info was uploaded to the DXRC Website, cheers John. While we were getting stuff out of the car we were questioned by a guy walking his dog, he thought we were fisherman, I explained our intentions, small radio, 12v battery, a couple of chairs, talking to a few friends etc and his initial negative attitude soon changed to being positive and friendly, basically he had a leisure boat moored close by and due to previous problems with theft's etc he just wanted to know what we were doing, we had a friendly chat with him for about 10 mins then proceeded to carry our stuff across the lock gates onto Holme island, by this time is was about 08:45utc, we decided to be as far away as possible from the leisure boats, we didn't want to disturb. Sean started assembling the Bamby antenna, I got everything else ready then started to collect proofs, GPS, video footage, pics etc, at 09:15utc 26DX/N017 was on air, first in the log was 47DX002 Soren. We had planned to stay on N017 until early afternoon to give NA a chance to work a new iWi, then we'd move to N005 and activate that one, but after about 80 stations in the log on N017 we weren't getting many takes, after chatting to a couple of friends I'd heard that a few island chasers wouldn't be around for the second island due to family commitments, work etc, so we quickly decided to move to N005, activate that for a few hours, by then NA would be open, then move back to N017 mid-afternoon. This is exactly what we did, the morning stint of 26DX/N017 went qrx at 10:40utc, we carried all equipment back over the lock gates and set up on N005, within 20 mins we are on air as 26DX/N005. We returned back to N017 at 14:00utc, ( collected more proofs ) and proceeded to work some friends which missed us from our morning stint. Morning operation 09:15 - 10:40utc Afternoon operation 14:00 - 14:45utc Total stations logged was 101. Thanks to all friends which called in, a special thanks to John for always being there to assist, ready to pass on any info, always there if help is needed, thanks mate. 73 de..Darran 26DX047.....and Sean return